Digital cameras have undergone increasing miniaturization and they have enabled an increasing variety of opportunities for low-resolution hands-free photography and videography. Digital videography has been furthered by the use of improved data compression, higher bandwidth dual purpose cables and better audio-video interfaces, e.g. DVI, HDMI, IEEE 1394, and DisplayPort. However, the transfer of increasingly higher-definition video requires a greater bitrate than conventional coaxial cable can provide because of the use of significantly more pixels per image and a higher frame rate. The ability to transfer large amounts of data at high speeds has been a limiting factor to the use of miniature cameras since data storage must be remote from the camera to achieve the smallest configurations. Signal attenuation is also a significant barrier which limits the effective length of the audio-video cable.
HDMI cable can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications easily and inexpensively by using 28 AWG conductors which have diameters of 0.0126 in, i.e. 0.321 mm. Higher quality HDMI cables can be manufactured to Category 2 specifications and utilize 24 AWG conductors which have diameters of 0.0201 in, i.e. 0.511 mm. Several versions of the HDMI specification have been released with HDMI 2.0 being the most recently released version. HDMI versions 1.3 and 1.4 are much more common.
The effective length of an audio-video cable is limited by the bandwidth of the cable and signal attenuation. When an audio-video cable is used to transfer data in real-time with no buffer at the camera the effective length is reduced even further.